i am newbie. i have been trying a bread recipe with different brands of yeast. my bread is not rising and is chewy. i am in Florida so it's not the temp. i also give the yeast 10 mins at 110 degree water. it rises a little at first but when i bake it gets flatter. i need a foolproof receipt for stand mixer for an artisanal loaf. i am ready to throw in the towel. thanks for anyone who can save me!!
Your problem isn't having a wrong recipe unless it's really, really wrong. A huge range of recipes will give good results. Why don't you tell us your recipe, including the kind of flour? Include how you put it together and hown you kneaded it. I would be suspicious that the yeast is very outdated, or that the initial water was hotter than you thought, or that there is something in the water, like chlorine or chloramine, that interferes with yeast growth. If you have tried several brands of yeast with the same results, then probably the yeast isn't outdated.
Instant yeast doesn't need to be soaked in water first - just add it to the other dry ingredients. Most modern active dry yeasts work that way too.
If the water is a problem, using bottled water (not distilled, though) might solve it. Or using a filter pitcher, or letting the water stand in an open container overnight - though if the water has chloramine, probably none of those will work and you should try bottled water.
A yeasted wheat dough should show rising within a half hour after mixing, and be very enlarged or puffy in an hour or an hour and a half at most. That's not very dependent on the recipe unless you have just used a tiny amount of yeast. Higher temperatures would speed up the process.
TomP
We really need more info before we can effectively help you. tpassin mentioned that yeast or water quality could be a problem. But so could the ratio of water to flour, how long you bulk fermented, how long you kneaded, did you over rise or over proof, oven temp, did the dough fill the pan 1/2-3/4, is there fat or sugar in the dough. So the best way to start is to include a list of ingredients and then a description of how you handled it. If you can take a picture of the cut loaf so we can see the crumb, that would be really helpful.
I live in Florida, also and I usually use bottled spring water for bread as we have an awful lot of chlorine/chloramines in our municipal water and that theoretically affects the yeast.
All the items that clazar123 listed could be in play. But I think they aren't the main thing going on, because most any yeasted dough is going to rise unless something prevents it. All the other listed things would affect how well the loaf turns out, and might be important to tune up for getting a particular desired kind of bread. But first the damn thing has to rise like a proper bread dough.
My vote's on the water. With luck, we'll all find out.
thanks everyone for the tips. i will try to remember the recipe. i use King Arthur bread flour. 1 1/4 cups water at 110degrees, i packet yeast - instant. 1 tsp sugar. let sit in mixing bowl 10 mins. add 3 cups flour and 1 tsp salt. mix for 2 mins. let sit 20. turn on again and knead in mixer 6-7 mins. adding another 1/2 c flour. let sit hour. fold over and sit 40 mins. bake for 35 mins at 400. i will try the bottled water route. not sure what else it could be, unless i am kneading/mixing too much or too little. thanks again.
A few things I notice. That's a lot of water for the amount of flour. Expecet the dough to be sticky and very extensible. It will tend to spread sideways instead of upwards, and that will obscure some of the rising. Unless confined by a pan of some kind, the baked bread would be flat, though not necessarily dense. The 110 deg hot water - that's very hot to be making bread dough with. Usually one would use a small part of the water to bloom the yeast, and have the rest of the water be at room temperature. Of course, the flour and other ingredients would cool the water down some. The yeast would probably act even faster than usual because of the temperature.
A suggestion, first. Bring the water temp down a bit. Just make it so it feels warm(not hot) if you test it on the tender skin by your wrist (I don't know if you are old enough or have had the life experience to have tested baby bottle temps). It could be that your yeast is affected by the temp. Anything over 125F definitely kills off the yeast so you are close.
What does the dough feel like? Is it thick and not sticky? Is it tacky not sticky(when you touch it and pull off no dough sticks-kind of like a Post-It note)? Or is it frankly sticky (when you touch it with a fingertip and pull away you have dough sticking to you?). It may need less water or need more rest time to absorb it.
After you are done kneading, can you pull a windowpane with it or does it break? Enter "windowpane" in the search box here, if needed.
Are you panning the dough or doing a boule or batard? Is your pan at least half and even 3/4 full when you initially put the dough into the pan? If the pan is too large for the amount of dough then it will tend to flatten out to fill the pan before rising in the middle. A proper fit helps the loaf "climb" the pan. A boule or batard may flatten out of the dough is especially slack from high hydration or from gluten deterioration. I Don't think you have gluten deterioration going on with the timings you describe. That is usually very overfemented dough.
Are you shaping the loaf before either panning it or setting it to proof as a freeform? Proper shaping goes a long way to a tall loaf-the folds help it climb itself.
When you proof the loaf, are you testing for proper proofing or just timing it? It could be your dough is under or over proofed. What is the temp of the room where you are proofing? Very warm and it may need less time, cool/air conditioned it may need more. It does not have to double to be properly proofed. Look up "finger poke test for proofing" in the search box and read up.
You are getting there. You have a few things to think about.
Another worth repeating - drop the temp below 100 - 80 is good enough. Go from there. Enjoy
so i tried something different. added the dry ingredients all at once including new yeast. then added the 1 1/4c warm bottle water. bread didn't rise after 1 hour. after another hour, just put it in oven. it came out like a brick. threw it in the garbage. i give up. i am a good cook, just not a good baker.
You can give up - that's the easy way. Plan on about 10 hrs - just for the dough - add a couple to cook. If ya want to try again I would recommend this;
Give up or report results. I should note - this is for regular yeast. Enjoy!
This is so peculiar I'm reaching for straws. Is there any possibility that you're measuring the water temp in C instead of F? Something is killing the yeast.
Adding water to the dried ingredients is fine. There must be something else going on. How about you try a few experiments:
If #2 works, your should be able to make bread using that yeast, water, and flour. Just use a basic recipe - say 300g flour, 1 packet of the same kind of yeast, 180 - 190g of the same water, 6g of salt. Mix together, wait half an hour covered , knead, cover and let rise.
I've done plenty of "dump" loaves and some work and some don't. They are generally more successful when I pay attention to some basic premises. There are a few questions you did not answer and that may be where the problem is.
What kind of yeast are you using? Active dry? Instant? Even if it is "new" to you, it may have travelled at too hot a temp getting to the store and be dead/half-dead. Put it in a small bowl with 1/4 cup warm water and the sugar and "proof" it. In 10-15 min it should be bubbly. That is "proof of life". Now add it to your dough.
What is the room temp of your kitchen and where the dough is staying when you let it sit for an hour to rise? If you are in an air conditioned house (which I assume you are as the temps in all of Florida have been in the 90's) then your yeast is fast asleep. It needs at least 80-90F to be active even if you "woke it up" with a proof. This can make a big difference. Put your dough (covered) on the sun porch, outside or in the garage. I live in Florida, too, so I know to pay attention to ambient room temp.
If this is too wasteful of ingredients or the cost of the ingredients, cut the amounts in half and try a mini-loaf of even a single roll just to get a feel for the process. You might even weigh out the original recipe in grams just so you can more precisely scale the recipe down for experimenting. King Arthur probably has the recipe in metric on it's website.
This is the fun part of baking-learning how these things come together and behave. You are just used to being comfortable with your ingredients but I guarantee you didn't start being a good cook from the get-go. There was a learning process. Have fun! Post back.
EDIT: At what stage was the pic of the dough taken? It looks mixed and oil-covered but not shaped or risen. How long had it been sitting when the pic was taken?
Here are some notes and a bunch of formulas I have collected here and there:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1F9_WtuDY5QgAXz8nKgQi6OLm_3lU6vc-8SCtTIXC9Qo/edit?usp=sharing
You might try using instant yeast (Smart & Final carries SAF instant yeast) which is mixed right in with the dough - no need to put it in hot water first.
The notes above have some straight doughs (no preferments) which aren't bad and are pretty simple. There are detailed directions for mixing the dough in a home mixer.
Good luck